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Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Nyonya Acar / Achar (Spicy Mixed Vegetable Pickle)

There are many variations of acar based on different family preferences, cultural influences and backgrounds. There are no strict rules for making acar and I like mine to have lots of pineapple in them. Instead of using store-bought rempah like how Little Teochew did, I have made my rempah from scratch and I reckon the extra effort of doing this is definitely worthwhile.

With the smaller kind of hot chilies that I used, the rempah that I made is more toward the spicy side. For this reason, my acar is not suitable for my three year old son's consumption. Despite that, he was "kind" enough to give me a thumb up when he realised that his daddy and mummy were enjoying these acar to the fullest... LOL!

This will make the carrot and cucumber stay crunchy!

My very sun-dried vegetables

Making the rempah

The key ingredient of my acar, PINEAPPLE!

Mix all together

Thumb up for mummy's acar - Too spicy for me but mummy and daddy love it!

Here's the recipe from Kuali.com by Amy Beh(with my notes and modification in blue)

600 ml water400 ml vinegar2 tbsp salt2 tbsp sugarRub cucumber slices with 1 tbsp salt. Leave aside for one hour. Wrap in clean towel or muslin cloth and squeeze out excess liquid (I didn't do this step). Place cucumber on a tray and sun for two to three hrs (this makes the cucumber crunchy). For the other vegetables, sun them separately in trays for one to two hrs. Note: I sun-dried my vegetable on a super-hot and dry 40°C Melbourne summery day for 3-4 hrs. I was worried at first assuming that I have over-dried my vegetables but they are ok and they are crunchy until the acar is finished.Bring water, vinegar, salt and sugar for scalding vegetables to a rapid boil. Blanch the vegetables, one type at a time: dip cucumber and cabbage in boiling mixture for two to three seconds; scald the rest of the vegetables - except chillies - for 8 to 10 secs. Drain vegetables at once in a colander.

Heat oil (2 tbsp of canola oil) in wok and fry the ground ingredients until fragrant and the oil begins to separate. Stir in vinegar and water. Add sugar and salt and bring to a boil, then leave to cool completely.

Stir in dried prawns, ginger (I didn't add prawns and ginger), shallots and garlic and all the prepared vegetables. Remove and store in a porcelain jar or a clean, dry glass jar. When about to serve, mix in peanuts (I didn't add this) and sesame seeds.

38 comments:

Love the thumbsup tagline and the picture of your son's thumbs up, so cute! Those cutie little fingers are adorable arent they :). I love acar, the mix rice shop near my house makes a good one, and i always stop by to buy some. Will try to join this one if i can.

Thanks for linking with me :D I have decided to make this just a link-up event (like Aspiring Bakers) rather than blog-hop event and so didn't provide any Inlinkz code for any blog hop. Like Aspiring baker, so that anyone can host this event whenever they want.

Hi Zoe,Your acar looks very good! I wanted to make this too for CNY, but really have not time at all! I've linked a sweet and sour pork using pineapples as one of the main ingredient besides the pork! A simple dish!

Hi ZoeI just posted my melt-in-the-mouth pineapple tarts last night (but still considered 5 Feb asian time), and I dun have any tarts left to take a picture with thumbs up cos we finished all 50 of them over the weekend. Oh no, how?

All you need to do is to 1) bake or cook anything with pineapple 2) mention Little Thumbs Up in your post and link back to Bake for Happy Kids or/and my little favourite DIY 3) submit your details on my Acar post and your link will be on my post :D

Hi, the dried vegetable with reduced moisture will make the vegetable crunchier even after they are blanched. The removed moisture by the drying is not going to be fully recovered after blanching! Cheers!